Primary importance

There has been a distinct Daily Mail-like Little Englander tendency in recent letters columns over your exceptional US election coverage. I do not recall reading about a Worcestershire parish council initiative to invade sovereign countries and would respectfully suggest to Mr Whippe (February 11) that Mr Bush's lunatic doings present a far greater threat to his way of life than do traffic-calming measures and wheelie-bin collections. Similarly, has Mr Priestley (February 11) forgotten about Blair's run-in with the WI? Coffee mornings in Norfolk are exactly the sort of places our politicians frequent at election time. The US election is what it is, but one of the candidates will be properly and fairly (we hope!) elected to the position of most powerful politician in the world, whether we like it or not, and pieces from such as Simon Schama and Michael Tomasky are essential to our understanding of that process. Phil ThomasThurstaston, Wirral